


Observation Deck

by heydoeydoey



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-30 23:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heydoeydoey/pseuds/heydoeydoey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not easy being on the outside looking in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Observation Deck

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Puckurt Fic I Didn't Write challenge on Livejournal
> 
> Blanket spoiler warning for pretty much all three seasons.

Blaine prides himself on being a good boyfriend.  He’s determined to make his relationship with Kurt work, because it’s obvious to him that they’re soul mates.  He transfers to McKinley because he’s fairly certain that a long-distance relationship, on top of being a Warbler and his AP classes and studying for the SATs, is going to be too much of a strain.  He loves Kurt, and he’s going to put in the hard work to keep him.

Only…well, Blaine’s starting to notice that being boyfriends isn’t much different from the way things were before. They eat lunch together, they critique the newest issue of _Vogue_ , Kurt helps him with French and Blaine quizzes Kurt on history, and on Thursdays they watch _Project Runway_ at Kurt’s.  The only difference is that they sometimes kiss or hold hands or go out to dinner.  But those things don’t really come naturally to Blaine.  He has to remind himself that Kurt is his boyfriend and he _can_ kiss him if he wants to, or hold hands with him when they sit next to each other in Kurt’s living room watching _Runway_.  Except…when they do kiss, it doesn’t feel the way Blaine thinks it could.  Their first kiss had made Blaine’s toes curl and left him breathless.  It doesn’t feel like that anymore and Blaine wants to fix it, but he doesn’t know how or even if he can.

He becomes aware of Puck only because of the attention Kurt gives him.  The two of them seem to have a wealth of inside jokes Blaine isn’t party to, most of them involving Finn.  They bicker almost constantly, but not in an aggressive way.  They always look like they’re two breaths away from laughing, and Blaine isn’t sure what all of that means, if anything.  All he really knows about Puck is that he used to throw Kurt in the dumpster, back before he joined glee club.  It’s obvious that both of them have moved past that, but Blaine wonders _how_.  And _why_.  They don’t seem to have anything in common, except glee club, and as far as Blaine knows, they really only hang out by default, since Puck is always at Kurt’s house, playing video games with Finn and raiding the fridge.

He doesn’t feel _threatened_ by Puck, but when he walks into the choir room one day and finds them with their heads together, laughing at something on Kurt’s phone, he wonders if he _should_.  When he asks Rachel about it, she just rolls her eyes.

“You have nothing to worry about.  Noah is probably the straightest boy at McKinley,” she assures him, her eyes innocent and her expression as earnest as always.

Blaine isn’t so sure.  He’s seen no evidence to corroborate Rachel’s story, despite everyone in New Directions joking about what a player Puck supposedly is. Kurt’s filled him in on the major glee club drama back stories, but it’s totally obvious to Blaine that Puck _isn’t_ a cheerleader-impregnating, manwhoring bully anymore, and he barely knows him, so he doesn’t really get why the rest of the club, who know him better, don’t see that. 

Even so, Blaine tells himself he doesn’t need to worry about Puck.  It works for a few weeks, until he walks into the choir room to find Kurt shouting at Puck.

“I can’t _believe_ you, you had absolutely no right—Blaine!”

Blaine watches a blush climb up Kurt’s neck, spreading slow and splotchy across his face.  He can’t read the shuttered expression on Puck’s face, but he recognises the one on Kurt’s.  _Guilt_.  Blaine doesn’t know what happened, but he supposes when Kurt looks like that he doesn’t _need_ to.  It’s obvious enough that _something_ happened, and Blaine isn’t sure that he cares to know the specifics. 

His stomach churns a little bit.  He feels deceived by Rachel who assured him he had nothing to worry about and by Kurt for obvious reasons.  There’s a surprising flare of jealousy there too, because even though he’s angry, Kurt is still looking at Puck the way Blaine wishes somebody would look at him.  And somewhere, buried beneath all those other feelings, Blaine knows he’s a little bit relieved.  Because if Kurt is willing to consider _Puck_ , of all people, then it means that he’s not the only one who feels like their relationship isn’t as perfect as it looks from the outside.

Blaine doesn’t _want_ to watch them.  He doesn’t want to see Kurt falling in love with somebody else, but it’s impossible not to.  There’s something so _easy_ about the way they interact; none of it ever looks forced or awkward or like they’re just playing parts because they know they should. 

When Kurt looks up from his history notes a few weeks later with a determined expression on his face, Blaine knows what’s coming.  Kurt and Puck have been drawing each other in more and more with every passing day, and Blaine has been preparing himself for this moment. 

“Blaine…I think we should break up.”

Even though he’s seen this coming for weeks (maybe even months), it’s still like a punch to the gut.  Part of him still wants to argue, even though he _does_ agree with Kurt, deep down.

“This is about Puck.” Blaine says before he can stop himself.

“No.  It isn’t.” Kurt insists, but the guilt is there on his face again. “Blaine, as much as I love you, I don’t love you like that.  We’re just friends, you know?”

Blaine does know.  He’s known that for a long time.  He finds himself nodding in agreement. “Puck is going to break your heart,” he warns.  He’s thought about it, and he just doesn’t see any other option.  Puck and Kurt are _too_ different, Blaine is sure of it.  Maybe they have the chemistry that he and Kurt don’t, but eventually that will wear off, and they’ll have nothing left in common. 

Kurt’s expression hardens. “You don’t know that.  And it’s not any of your business, anyway.”

“I don’t want to fight, Kurt.” Blaine says, mostly because he doesn’t see the point in them arguing over Puck.  Either way, Kurt is still going to go into school tomorrow and tell Puck he’s made his decision.

Kurt doesn’t tell Puck the next day.  Out of respect for Blaine’s feelings, he waits a whole week, which Blaine thinks, considering the way Puck and Kurt have been staring at each other, shows a considerable amount of patience.

When Blaine sees them walking in the hallway, Puck’s arm slung causally across Kurt’s shoulders, Kurt smiling up at Puck, he wonders if maybe he’s wrong about Puck breaking Kurt’s heart.  He can’t help thinking they look like the perfect couple he and Kurt weren’t.

*       *       *

Quinn never loved Puck the way he loved her.  Sometimes, she thinks she could have.  Puck is the sort of boy who’s easy to fall in love with; that perfect balance of dangerous and vulnerable that lures in virgin cheerleaders and lonely middle-aged women alike.  Although Quinn has seen more of his vulnerable side than most.  She remembers the afternoon she got pregnant, remembers the way he’d been trembling even under all his cocky bravado.  She thinks she should have realized then that she always mattered more to him that he did to her.  Her favorite memory of him is the day before the bake sale, when he’d folded eighteen dollars into her hand, his face so serious like he thought it was really going to help.  Her heart broke the day Beth was born, especially watching Puck fight with himself, trying to find a possible way to avoid giving her up.

Quinn is good at reading Puck; she understands him the way nobody else does.  And she worries about him; she can’t help it.  They have the sort of history that’s going to tie them together forever, whether they like it or not.  She knows he’s walking around with a gaping hole in his heart just like she is, but she can see that it’s different for him.  Quinn fights against that pain every day, but Puck doesn’t.  Puck accepts it, and decides to channel it.  For a while he finds the wrong outlets—drugs, booze, crime—but Quinn knows she can’t be the only one who notices the changes after Puck gets out of juvie.  Maybe it’s a cliché, but if there was anybody who needed to be scared straight, it was Puck.

Quinn is sure everyone notices his time spent in class increasing and his time spent in Figgins’ office decreasing, his repaired friendship with Finn and his sudden monogamous relationship with Lauren.  Those are the big things.  But Quinn thinks she’s the only one catching the smaller things.  He doesn’t get involved in locker room show down with Karofsky, even though he obviously wants to.  He barely drinks at all during Alcohol Awareness Week, even though the rest of them spend it totally wasted.  And, okay, maybe everybody does notice him crying during Regionals (and proceed to give him a hard time about it), Quinn wonders why no one pays attention to the fact that a year ago he barely _laughed_ in front of anyone, let alone cried.  He’s growing up, and he’s learning to rely on people a little bit more.  

The first time she notices the way he is with Kurt is the day she gives up the Skank routine and comes back to glee club.  They’re both leaning on the ballet bar, shoulders just barely touching and Puck’s grinning at something Kurt mutters to him, probably about Finn’s dancing.  It’s a little jarring to see how comfortable they are around each other, because until now she hasn’t really noticed it.  For a long time there was nothing but a distinct air of unease between them, and considering their history Quinn never really expected that to change.

But obviously something has changed, because when she tries to remember any interactions between them up until now, all she comes up with is Puck provoking Kurt and Kurt shooting back some snide comment.  They liked to antagonize each other, test how long or how hard they could push before the other one retaliated.  She realizes a few days later that they _still_ do, when she walks into the choir room for glee club and finds them sitting next to one another in the back row, bickering.  Blaine sits on the other side of Kurt looking bemused, but no one else seems to be paying them any attention. 

Quinn doesn’t doubt that in the beginning, when Puck was new to glee club, these moments between them were hostile.  They aren’t anymore.  Kurt is clearly trying not to laugh, and Puck looks relaxed, not defensive or threatened the way he might have a year or two ago.

The same day everyone finds out Kurt and Blaine are broken up, Quinn accidentally overhears Puck and Kurt talking.  Technically, it’s _their_ fault; they don’t really belong in the girls’ bathroom, no matter how many excuses they both offer up.

“You broke up with him,” Puck says, and his voice is soft.

“I did,” Kurt says, and when Quinn peers through the gap between the door and the stall, she sees Puck reach out cautiously to take Kurt’s hand.  Their fingers lace together almost automatically and Quinn wonders how she possibly could have missed _this_.  Their relationship has obviously been building behind the scenes, where nobody’s been watching, not even her.

“You sure you made the right choice?” Puck’s voice is both soft and rough, and Kurt might not understand what that tone means yet, but Quinn does and it makes her stomach twist.  She doesn’t know if she’s ever going to forget those words, or the look on his face when he admitted he loved her.  It doesn’t matter that she didn’t feel the same way.  Puck isn’t the sort of boy who offers up his heart to every girl he comes across.  He’s been hurt too many times, he knows better, and Quinn hopes Kurt understands the enormity of what Puck is offering. 

“Of course I am, Noah.”

Quinn relaxes at the certainty in Kurt's voice.  She knows Puck can take care of himself, but she also knows firsthand how easy it is to break his heart.  She trusts Kurt to be more careful with it than she was.


End file.
